I'm new at this forum, so it looks like I'm gonna have some catching up to do, with so many things are going on here. I love this forum, so far I just looked through some posts and I got strong impression it looks like it is precisely what I looked for, and found it.

I am in the last stage of my preparations to the long trip, around Australia I was planning long time ago. With my rig put together out of Honda CRV AWD, towing small 14 feet, one axle caravan, I hope to make it around. As a matter of fact, this is not my first travel since lon time. Earlier, I travelled working at fruit picking, prospecting, mining, etc. I also spend a few years at Coober Pedy, mining and cutting opal, had some great time and bad time, and some wonderfool experiences, too. Now I think, it is a time to hit the road again, this time more relaxed, no more in harry anywhere, for whatever reason... It feels good to leave the "rat race" to incurable "rat racers". I plan to go sometime after the second half of November. Probably 20-eth. With may be 1 or 2 days postpone, if need to finish some things.

I plan to stay mainly at free camping and rest areas, one or two days, and keep going. I still have some work to do with fitting my rig with some things, doing some repairs to caravan, etc. Old caravan, but served me well so far, over many years. I think the twin battery system will serve quite well, with secondary 100 Amp/h battery fitted at the rear of the car, in the box with electri connections and inverter fitted to it. All backed up at the day time with 120 W foldable solar panel. 600 W inverter apeared to me to be quite adequate, for the frequent use of laptop for some blogging and multimedia use, fridge and couple of energy saving light bulbs, plus occasional use of TV. More power I plan to fit on the road, one more deep cycle battery, etc. I found also site with very reasonable prices for electric equipement certainly lovable by all nomads on the road. The adress is here: http://www.australiandirect.com.au/y

Hi there and welcome. I spent a few months on the road at the beginning of the year and thoroughy enjoyed it. I pottered along at my own pace and met some great fellow travellers. Although I won't be doing much in the next 12 - 18 months, I love to get on this forum and see who is travelling and where they are going. Enjoy! Monica

Thank you for your welcome, Monica.

Nice to meet you :) I sure hope to meet you personally too, on the road, if we happen to head the same way :)

Ziggy

Thank you, John.

I noticed you here, browsing this forum :) Thank you for your welcome. I'll sure get in touch. Where are your whereabouts right now? I'm still in Adelaide, preparing to go.

Ziggy.

Welcometo the forum Esperion and I hope your travels are safe and enjoyable.

We may meet up somewhere you will know whereabouts I am from the posts on this forum, please contact me if within range.

John

Hi Esperian, welcome, 

I would like to here more about your duel battery system. I also have a small older style caravan and have just purchased 130w solar fold out panels.  There is an old battery in the caravan and am looking to buy the recomemended heavy duty battery to sit beside it.  I want to charge them together from the solar so I had JayCar makeup the red and black leads for only $22.00.  I then went to NRMA battery work shop to price the batteries and he told me he dosen't recommend that I use the old battery as when they are charged up and the panels are turned off, the weaker of the 2 batteries will drain the full battery. You might see I'm not really up to speed and need all the help I can get. And wow, haven't the solar panels come down in price.

Helen

Hallo Helen.

Batteries work analogically to connected water containers. Their potential will always want to get even in all batteries, no matter if they are old or new. If one battery will be completely empty, and connected to the full one, the full one will have power spelled over to the empty battery, or the one with less potential (volts), till the potential will even in both to the same level (amount of volts). Problem with old battery is, it may not want to hold the power, due to sulphated plates, or it will do that for very short time. So as the result, it will hold power for much shorter time, even if charged with good potential (voltage), making your system rather not very much reliable for any longer period of time.

Two batteries connected together - analogically to two connected water containers - will always want to even down their potentials, with better charged battery always giving power to he weaker one. If there is no isolator regulating that process, you won't have security that your amenity battery (secondary battery used for powering your amenities) would not drain your primary battery starting your car. Such simple connection will work, but it is unsafe.

With the automatic transmission car, as I guess is your Honda CRV, this means asking for a jump-start. This is not good at all, if you find yourself in some isolated spot. besides that, just a few, - sometime just couple - total drains of normal starting battery means that batteries' life shortened really dramatically.

Here is link to reasonably cheap place online, to buy good dual battery system: http://www.australiandirect.com.au/ it will make your life on the road much easier and safer... I got for myself a 140 Amp/h insulator kit, and they include extra a battery and alternator tester, worth something like 24 dollars, so it is a very good deal. I personally think, the 140 Amp/h insulator is the best, as you may wish to upgrade later to more deep cycle storage, and you certainly would like to avoid then spending extra, to upgrade also the insulator, possibly not strong enough to manage the system with much extra power. But if you are are happy with less, the 100 Amp/h will set you well below 100 $A expense. And, all this is with free postage.

You said you have 130W fold-out solar panels. This is just 10W more than the one I bought online, through Ebay. I just got it yesterday. Fold-out 120W panel costed me too, just 175 $A, toether with postage. I got it within three days. This morning I got my dual battery system kit sent to my door step (insulator with heavy duty cable, all connectors, etc.) and I plan to fit it in couple more days. I put my secondary battery (one I will use to power with my amenities) at the back of my CRV, as under the bonnet there is not enough room to fit quite bulky and heavy 100 Amp/h, heavy duty deep cycle battery, that I have for this purpose.

Deep cycle batteries are more expensive than plain car batteries, due to their work environment, and a lot more weight due to bulkier plates and construction, but they last forever. I'd advise you also, to buy plastic battery container, to avoid spelling acid, in case you'd put it in the rear of your vehicle. Of course, you can put smaller battery as a secondary, under your bonnet, but this may be too small to really serve your purpose.

I hope this will help you a bit, Helen. If you have some more questions, feel free to ask. I'll try to help you as much as my (also limited) knowledge about it can help.

Ziggy

-- Edited by Esperian on Wednesday 24th of October 2012 12:38:52 AM

Hi Ziggy

Wow! I actually understand what you say about the battery situation. Thank you.  And thanks for the offer to pick your brain a little more on this subject. I'm working on a longer post with many questions for you.

Helen

"...comes with a solar charge controller (is that the same as a regulator)?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No Helen.

Solar charger controller mainly prevents damage to panel, preventing power from going back into you panel from the battery getting charged, when it stops charging (heavy clouding, rain, going dark, itp). Regulator checks and regulates power flow into battery, plus any eventual (even if unlikely) power flares, etc. When the charged battery (or the battery-bank) gets full, solar panel regulator though, - having been de facto a solar panel charger - stops it from giving more power into the battery when it gets full, and swithes back into charging mode when needed.

And. If you won't be leaving you panel alone, out of your eye site, for long periods of time, I don't think you should be afraid of theft. Certainly, there are some Low Life Mongrels, out there somewhere, certainly it is so, but there are not really so many that it would be worth to get paranoic about it when traveling. At least, I never met one, so far. May by I'm just lucky? But the idea of getting it chained, possibly to the caravan, sound quite original, and very reasonable as a preventive metod. That's sure.

But I think. Best prevention getting it back to the van when you go for any longer time out. it is foldable and not really that heavy to get it back in safe place. I like you idea for fitting the battery. Very practical...

I plan rather to just put my own caravan-battery in special box for power and amenities, fitted at the back of my van as a sort of a van extention. But that I'll do only at the later stage. I want to put there together 1000W generator, 2500W inverter, 50Amp battery charger and other staff. In the meantime, I am setting-up my dual battery system, with auxilliary 100Amp/h battery, at the back of my small 4WD. I put this deep cycle in the power box, with 300W inverter fit to the box and with all connections.  This way, I need only open my back window to connect to it solar panel to charge, and domestic power cable from inverter to my caravan, and/or wherver else I'd needed it.

Such arrangement gives me good flexibility, if I'll need to leave my van somewhere - in some sort of a base camp - and go around for prospecting or fossicking trip, fishing, or just site seeing, but al time with power still available in my van whenever I need it. I alwas carry in my car the bag-out kit, with a backpack, swag, medical emegency kit, etc.

Good luck Helen! I hope to meet with you somehere on the trail sometime, and see you rig. You caravan looks a lot better than my, though, Helen... My is just old work horse type, now not even with weels fitted on, till I'll finally move on :) I still got a bit of work to do on it.

All the best luck that you can get, Helen.

Ziggy

-- Edited by Esperian on Thursday 25th of October 2012 12:47:18 PM

-- Edited by Esperian on Thursday 25th of October 2012 12:49:30 PM

Thank you Jules.

I will surely try to get in touch with her, too. It is good to know that someone from the "club" is close by :)

Ziggy

Loki wrote:

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Welcome and enjoy your travels! You've obviously put a lot of thought into your system, it should put you in good stead for free camping and thus long and happy travels. Enjoy!
Cheers,
Anton

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 Thanks Anton.

Yes. you right. I've been planning the long trip, the round-Australia one, and have been preparing to it best as I can. I already travelled before, but with no much comfort, most of the time in hurry to work, or back. So I experienced few times, quite a few difficulties on the road, too. But, the bad experience apeares to be a good teacher, after all :)

One thing I learned is, safety first. Do all you can, when planning to go on long trip, and especially if you think of going to desert somewhere. Australian Desert is beautiful, but can et quite unsafe, if you have not enough water, or you battery gets buggered, especially in an automatic vehicle. Unfortunately, nowadays, most of them are automatics, and it is now very hard to get the trusty, old time manual. So, as much power as one can get makes it a lot safer, especially if one travels mostly alone, as I do now.

Great trips and experiences, Anton!

Ziggy

Hi Ziggy and welcome. If you're in Adelaide we could catch up, if you'd like.
I'm heading off working tomorrow, but through the magic of the forum we could organised a cuppa some time next week when I get back. It's up to you.
I hope you enjoy your stay, and I wish you safe and happy travels.

__________________

Hi Cruising Granny.

Thank you for your warm welcome and an invitation. I'd love to have a cuppa and a chat with you, personally. If you'll have time next week, it's gona by fine with me, any time. I plan to move on after the 17-th next monts, as I got an important club meeting then, and before that, some work still to do on my van and car. I'll get to you on p/m.

And you right. This forum is true magic thing for us, travellers, isn't it? :) Makes getting together so much easier, almost effortless...

Ziggy

Welcome to the forum Ziggy.  Sounds like you are just about set up ready to go.  It doesn't really matter what you travel in, just as long as you enjoy yourself.  One of the guys in the Winnie club ribs me because my rig is 14 years old and they all have shiny new ones. (All in fun, of course) I just laugh and tell him that if it had any warranty problems they are all fixed now so I don't have any hassles.  Have fun Ziggy and safe travels.

Cheers!

Chris